In part 2 of the series I looked at India and how it tries to implement a large scale operation to upgrade its educational and competitive capability. Today’s example is the United Kingdom, a developed country with steady population and the longest tradition in industry and technology in modern history.
It is the homeland of some of the greatest minds and technical feats in history. Despite the disintegration of the British empire in the 20th century, during the first post-war decades it has managed to stay in the forefront of industry and innovation. Since then however, many things have changed. The UK is no longer able to match the US and the shear manufacturing size of large rising economies like China and India.
Furthermore, ever tighter integration of the British economy with the EU and the huge size of the EU market mean that the UK does not enjoy the freedom of the past, despite political will and a decision to not adopt the euro. In the 80s, Margaret Thatcher decided to increase competition, open the country to external investment -all Japanese brands set up facilities thanks to attractive tax packages and a skilled workforce- and give extra bias to services.
Although British industry was not decimated as pessimists predicted, the UK has lost some of its momentum compared to Italy, France and Germany, despite very satisfactory overall financial performance. An area where the UK still excels is its universities and their science and engineering departments. One would say that the UK’s educational system is the closest to the North American one from all EU states. Read the rest of this entry »
